A Journey to Survivor Badassery

Addressing Larger Issues

[[What was supposed to be a book review post is turning into a regular post, and then I’ll write the book review. Thanks for being patient.]]

This book review is a few days late and a long while coming. I’ve been meaning to upload it sooner, but I only finished finally reading the book yesterday afternoon, and only finished writing out the quotes I’ll be using here in my new journal today, and I’ve already dropped off the book back to the library today too. So, this is coming from what I remember, what I’ve written down and what I’ll be typing up here.

I will say I’m in an odd mood. I’ve been catching up with the news about the Orlando club shooting and it’s loudly on the news right now, so my attention is a bit split. I’ve also been pretty much binge watching Christina Grimmie’s videos, I forgot how far back into a few years ago I went with enjoying her content, which is also taking up my attention and concentration. I’d just like to say that: My condolences are with the families and friends and communities that have been affected by these tragic deaths, Life can be shit for sure, Humanity is a strange concept when you think about it and our place in the universe and all other things (what we create, animals, dinosaurs, the planet, other planets), There will always be Assholes (taken from the book ;)) out there and not everyone is a good person, That doesn’t mean we give up being good people and following our values and making the most out of this Life with the time we have on here, which is short.

I don’t know what the answer is to eradicating acts of terror, or if it’s even possible, yet I know that it sucks, and it sucks that some people in our world of billions of humans think that expressing acts of violence is a more “effective” way of saying, “hey, stop hurting my people.”

I… it doesn’t make sense to me. Killing more people, likely other people who have no to little influence over the people who have killed your people, just kills people. That’s it. There’s no external message. There’s no solution. That’s a really shitty way to attempt to do any type of “problem solving.”

Acting on violence just throws more shade to the cause you’re attempting to eradicate yourself. Your goal is trying to get people in power to stop killing your people. So, you think doing the very act of violence that makes the people in power feel threatened and are killing your people to protect themselves against that same violence, is going to help? Does that even make sense, I don’t know.

If your goal is to stop people in the government from killing your own people, BECOMING that person who acts outlandish and violent and throws a minority of people into the subjective view of the majority of people (i.e. one person’s actions being equated to ALL of that sub-group of people’s actions/potential actions) is just adding to the problem you supposedly want to stop or “help.”

If I wanted to prove that not all mentally ill people go out and commit violent crimes, I wouldn’t then myself go out to produce a violent crime. All that does is emphasize the lie and the bullshit that all mentally ill people go and commit violent crimes.

It just makes no sense to me.

No one’s ever taught me how to feel about morals and people who are bad that fall outside of that good bubble line. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about serial killers, psychopaths that kill (versus manipulation versus less inherently bad) or sociopaths (I get these two confused) that kill or abusers and rapists and terrorists.

Do I support exceptions to the rules? Death penalty versus a personally prescribed death sentence that is slow, agonizing and painful? Years in prison? Prisons in places like Mars for fuck’s sake?

I don’t know. There’s no guidance here. There’s a shit ton of violence, though. Yet I feel that I cannot control what these other people, bad people out there, do or don’t do in the world. I don’t have control over that. Just like we don’t necessarily control when we die or how.

A lot of people, MORE people in the world, are peace loving, misunderstood, caring, kind people. Then there are people not so good. People who don’t think what they’re doing is wrong, the Assholes. Assholes don’t admit they’re Assholes, they don’t think they have a problem, but that everybody else does.

How do you treat that? How do you end that? What control do we really have? As humans? Someone is always going to be left behind, with a broken family, with anger and hate, with distaste for someone else for what they have, for a better life than the shitty one they were dealt.

Even if there may always be violence of some kind in this world, the world won’t be around forever. We won’t be around forever. These concepts make my world feel lopsided, tilted, dizzying. Our time here is limited, and what lies beyond is unlimited.

While we are here though, it’s best to make the most of it.

There’s always going to be someone who acts on violence as the ‘answer’ to their issues. However, there are ways we can prevent those actions. We can learn more about the topic-of homicide for instance or certain red flags in behavior- and we can learn who to contact when and where, there have to be resources available, we can build together and rebuild when things fall and fall again. Because they will fall, and we will rebuild together, putting back the pieces, making something better than before.

Just because we’re going to die at some point doesn’t mean we can’t use that time to do some good for this world. Because while the hate can make a difference, so can the good. And maybe one day, the good will outshine the hate, and the hate will just be a by-product of lost hope or where the good wasn’t able to quite reach.

Follow Recovery to Wellness via Email

You can now enter your email address to follow this snazzy blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. When you do, you'll receive a glittery puff of smoke and a basket of hugs!! Stay safe, and thank you for stopping by!!